Obama talks gun-violence shame, student debt in Tumblr Q&A

On the heels of the latest school shooting in the U.S., which left a gunman and student dead in Oregon Tuesday, President Barack Obama let fly in a live chat with Tumblr’s founder, David Karp, taking the usual social media heat.

Among Tumblr users who submitted questions in the run-up to Tuesday’s chat was Nick Dineen, who attends school at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dineen, who asked Obama what he was going to do about gun violence, was a resident assistant on the floor where Canadian teen George Chen lived last year. Chen and six others were killed by shooter Elliot Rodger last month.

Obama said his “biggest frustration” so far is the inability of society and its lawmakers to take even “basic steps” to keep guns out of the hands of people who can do “unbelievable damage.

“We’re the only developed country on earth where this happens. And it happens now once a a week, and it’s a one-day story. There’s no place else like this…The fact that 20 six-year-olds were gunned down in the most violent fashion possible and this town couldn’t do anything about it? It’s stunning to me.”

Obama was referring to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre last year. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence estimates that an average of eight children and teens under the age of 20 are killed by guns everyday. Obama’s push for tighter regulations has met stiff resistance from gun lobbyists .

He said blaming shootings on mental-health issues rather than gun problems, doesn’t wash, saying the U.S. doesn’t have a “monopoly on crazy people,” and yet “we kill each other in these mass shootings at rates that exponentially higher than anyone else.” Obama said the country has some “soul-searching” to do, and he’d work with anyone to come up with solutions, but now it’s not even possible to get the “mildest restrictions passed, and we should be ashamed of that.”

Among Twitter reactions:

Switching gears, Obama also answered a question about student loans, on the heels of a program announced this week that will help cap payments for 5 million borrowers to 10% of their income. He said even though college costs are higher and higher, it’s “absolutely” still a good investment. He said the loan program is available for loans taken out after 2007, but hopefully by the end of the year will extend to those taken out before that year.

But he said college isn’t for everyone and trade school may be an option for some, and also advised students pick a career that will help them get their loans paid off.

Tough love was wrapped in that advice for Obama, who spoke of his time working at a law firm.

“I worked for a year in a job I wasn’t interested in, because I wanted to pay off my loans. You know, work is not always fun. And you can’t always follow your bliss right away,” he said, saying a career won’t always be “a straight line everyday.”

And he also said students shouldn’t expect to become a superstar without getting through college first, saying Karp, who founded Tumblr at age 21 and skipped college, is the exception rather than the rule. Balance the practical with those aspirations, he said.

“There are only going to be so many Zuckerbergs or Gates who are able to short-circuit the traditional path. If you can, more power to you…but say Tumblr had been a bust or Facebook had been some dating site no one was really interested in…for the average young person, an investment in college is always going to be a smart investment.

The Washington Post said Obama proved he was “hip to all things,” praising him for knowing who’s who at Tumblr and the blogger itself for pulling off the feat well. Karp celebrated with this fist bump gif, duly tweeted around by the White House itself.

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